Menu

True stories of a mom trying to raise twins while keeping her sanity.

A few months ago a dear friend and I caught up on life’s new events. After a few drinks we started to discuss how people always want to know what is next in your life. These people can vary from our mothers, friends, distant aunts, and even strangers on the street. We came to the conclusion that there is societal pressure to know what is “next”. People obviously mean well and care that’s why they ask right?

The dreadful “And Then” conversation usually goes something like this:

Incredibly Presumptuous but Well Meaning Person: “I heard you just started talking to someone are you official? How’s the sex?”

You: “Well we just met two weeks ago.”

IPWMP: “That’s great! Now that he’s your official boyfriend when are you going to put it on FaceBook, and when are you getting engaged?”

You: “Its only been a few months.”

IPWMP: “Congrats you just got engaged! When is the wedding? I need to know all the details. Dress? Color Scheme? Theme? Location? How big is your diamond? I need to know what I need to wear to the wedding! What should my mom wear? OMG I can’t wait to see the long list of people you aren’t inviting but I will tell them they ARE invited to make your life awkward as fuck.”

You: “We just got engaged last night.” (Begins to sweat)

IPWMP: “So… are you pregnant yet? I mean how many kids are you thinking? How long have you been trying?”

You: “It’s our wedding day. We have only been married for 3 hours.”

IPWMP: OH MY GOD YOU”RE PREGNANT!!! Was it natural? Was it IVF? Are you on fertility drugs? I need to know every single detail of when/how the baby was made! Was it romantic? Was it just a quick bang? How are you delivering? Vaginal? C-section? Whats the name? Gender? What’s the nursery decor? What kindergarten are they going to? Are you vaccinating? You know vaccines cause autism right? Jenny McCarthy says so. Where are you registered? Are you going to breastfeed? Dr. Oz says you have to or you’re not doing your best.”

You: “I just found out I was pregnant yesterday.” (Wants to cry because none of the questions asked have even registered.)

IPWMP: “When are you trying for another? Do you want more? I mean you have to plan so you can pay for their college. They need siblings. You don’t what to have spoiled only child. They need siblings so they aren’t socially awkward. Are you going to adopt your next baby? What country are you thinking? Ethiopia is corrupt in their adoption process. CNN had a story about one family that went wrong. Plus Asian babies are so cute. Did your c-section hurt?”

You: “I just delivered an hour ago and can’t comprehend what you are saying because my epidermal hasn’t worn off. I’m high as shit.”

IPWMP: “When are you going back to work? Are you getting your masters?”

You: Thinking about your wine dependency and the transition into becoming a recluse.

*Fast forward 40 years.

IPWMP: “When are you going to drop dead?”

You: You finally drop dead and it stops.

After writing this I thought of a random clip from the movie Dude Where’s My Car? Ashton, Stiffler, and crew pull up to the ordering window and this happens:

So my point is keep mindful and just let people live their lives the way they want. I know I will keep this in mind with my little ones as they grow older.

I sheepishly smile at you and pretend you are hilariously creative and witty. Inside I am suppressing the twitch my body has involuntarily started to form from hearing this so many times.

2. “C-Section right? There’s no way it was a natural birth!”

It was a C-Section, but it is none of your god damn business. You are a stranger. I am sure you would feel uncomfortable talking to a stranger about what has happened to your reproductive organs and vagina in any context.

3. “Do twins naturally run in your family?”

You’re asking me if I had fertility help in a nice way aren’t you? I know this but you are too polite to come out and say it, yet too ballsy for your own good.

4. “My sister has a friend who has a niece that had twins.”

Or always some variation of this. Someone always has to say how they obscurely know someone who has had twins. Twin moms really don’t care who you know who has twins. Well almost, we care if it is someone from the list below which I like to call the Holy Trinity (All actual twin moms).

The Holy Trinity of Twin Moms:

In the name of the….

Mother: Jennifer Lopez

Daughter: Sarah Jessica Parker

and the Holy Spirit: Angelina Jolie

We pray for Julia Roberts our Bishop and Ricky Martin our Pope

Amen.

With that said being a twin mom is something that only few of us gain rite to. Bring on the bullshit chit-chat because having these two are the best!

A few days ago my husband and I were rushing around like crazy people packing for a big trip. We were off to see my brother Tyson who lives at the beach a few hours away. It was his college graduation. We checked and double checked everything needed when twins are in tow. Half of our living room was covered in bags and bins of “necessities” two tiny human beings had to have for this trip.

Wyatt (my husband) was packing up our dogs, I was trying to find something decent in my pile of dirty/clean clothes that rotate in the same basket to wear. Kitty (mentioned in my previous post) was attending and if I did not look somewhat decent she would let me know in the worst way any terrifying Napoleonesque grandmother would. All the while we had two scooting babies to add to the mix.

Then I hear it, “OH MY GOD he’s eating a magazine.” This was Wyatt yelling in panic about my son Franco consuming a newly minted issue of Vanity Fair.

Wyatt:”I tried to get it, the ball of paper in his mouth and I think he just swallowed it.”

Me: “His cheeks are freaking huge, he could be hoarding it in there check!”

Wyatt: “Nope nope he swallowed it for sure.”

Me: “Check his cheeks!”

With a huge sigh we realized he just ate it and that was that.

During the next several hours feeling like a bad mother, I had childhood flashbacks of the following events:

The Elmer’s Glue Affair:

Images of me sitting in my room hovering over a jar of Elmer’s glue paste eating it with a spoon like Gollum with his precious ring. Thinking of this dug up euphoric feelings of happiness and becoming slightly dizzy. It was as if the peppermint paste turned my brain to pop rocks. I then would immerse my hands in the glue and let it dry peeling it off to create white monster hands. It was weird and I’m not ashamed.

The time my cousins and I almost Hunger Gamed ourselves:

Memories of my cousins and I playing “Dare you to eat that unknown berry on that bush.” They were only blackberries in my grandmother’s backyard but we honestly didn’t know at the time. It really could have ended up like a mass child suicide with red berry juice streaming from the corners of our mouthes.

The Creek Crossing:

My cousin Camille and I have been best friends since birth. In the early 90s we lived together in a 3 bedroom house along with my Aunt and Uncle, Camille, her 4 siblings, my brother, and myself. Yes that totals 7 children and 4 adults in a 3 bedroom house. It was crazy, it was fun, it was awesome. Camille and I would sneak back into the woods behind our house pretending to be Native American witches and wander for what felt like hours. Early on a dewey summer morning, we found our way to a creek. We were determined to cross it and one day did. A large tree fell over and created a path from one embankment to another. Camille and I sat down and scooted across the tree placed very high above a fast-moving body of water. We did this for days on end back and forth until we discovered on the other side, a golf course! We found a way to shimmy under the course fence and rolled around on the putting greens like we were fucking kings. We noticed a particular green where golfers would consistently hit balls to. We would run, grab the ball, and hide while a pissed off WASP would mutter in frustration. We were up to no good and loved every minute of it. I don’t really remember why we stopped crossing the creek, but I will always have memories of warm summer days and mischief. Days reveled by a wild pair of children, but probably a nightmare for any parent to hear.

After reminiscing, I questioned my parenting for several hours and came to the conclusion that shit happens. Kids will eat magazines and probably much worse. Thinking of all the crazy adventures we went on as children I said to myself, “Where were our parents?”. Maybe it is true my children Franco and Rose will do much worse than consume glossy pages of paper with images of anorexic women in haute couture. However, I can be present enough to make sure they don’t ask ,”Where were our parents?”.

A long time ago during the turn of the millennium, I was in high school. During this time I lived in Germany with my family. Our familial matriarch bestowed on us the most wonderful visit. It only took around 48 hours to send her back on a plane to the United States via red-eye and wave a jovial good riddance from the airport parking lot around 1 am. The woman I am referring to is my grandmother. Yes, you might ask, “What the hell does this have to do with twins?” or “Who the hell stone cold sends an old lady back in the middle of the night?” Well it has a lot to do with trying to raise a functional family while coming from a comically painful dysfunctional one.

The story begins like this:

One day my grandmother “Kitty” asks my mother “Frankie” if she will go to the store to buy her a six-pack of coca cola from America. This was almost impossible because we were in Germany. A little background info on Kitty. She is a 4’11” white haired woman who wears lipstick along with pjs and enough jewelry to rival anyones Bubbie. She wears heels daily which if she had the chance, would most likely stab someone with them Tawny Kitaen style. She loves Dick Cheney, Jesus, and America.

My mother determined to please her mother in law began her quest to find American high fructose corn syrup laden coke or be damed. Frankie found a store and drove a half hour. She returned with 2 liter bottles of coke not cans. “That bitch.” I’m sure is what Kitty thought of when she saw the plastic bottles not cans strapped together with deer dumpster killing plastic. Kitty confronted Frankie for not getting exactly what she wanted. Things escalated quickly and Kitty beat Frankie with the bottles of coke. Yes, you just read that correctly. My grandmother beat my mother with 2 liter bottles of coke simply because she wanted cans. Obviously liters of coke are the devil. Shrieks of craziness echoed through our house and in comes my father “Big Bear”. He was madly disappointed because this was not the first time Kitty was domestically abusive over such frivolous things. So to say the least he decided enough was enough and ordered me, a 15-year-old scardy cat to pack her things for her. He put me and her in the car and drove her to the airport, bought a red-eye, and bye Feliciaed her ass all the way back to the swing state of Florida. I was relieved. She was terrifying.

Fast forward and I am a 29-year-old mother of Fraternal twins just trying to figure it out. Like any mom I think the world of my children. I am trying to navigate between a cluster fuck of mommy advice columns, books, blogs, and social media and figure out what is the best for my kids. I am trying my damnedest to raise my beautiful children in functional household when all that I know is a dysfunctional one.

There are many more stories like this about Kitty and sure many more are to come. She doesn’t scare me anymore, because as an adult I have realized she is probably insane. I look back on the many times we kicked her out of our house during her visits as comical. I actually just saw her the other day and she gave me six different copies of the National Enquirer because “You should know whats really going on the world.” My favorite so far is about how Bruce Jenner was tortured over a sex swap surgery.